N.Z. script headache

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34104, 17 March 1976, Page 4

N.Z. script headache

(By

“It is in the scripting area that New Zealand television is worst served,” TV2’s head of drama (John Mcßae) told the Auckland Rotary Club this week. “Most of the unsolicited scripts we see are very bad, failing for a host of reasons.”

“The most surprising thing about many of the unsolicited scripts we get is the recurring theme of the macabre, the gruesome and the outlandish,” Mr Mcßae said. He should have been

ROBIN TURKEL)

here for the N.Z.B.C.’s “Spotlight” series. In that one it sometimes seemed the straight people were the freaks, there were so few. Mcßae, a New Zealander who has spent many years with the 8.8. C. returned last year to set up the Aucklandbased network’s drama department virtually from scratch. “The 8.8. C. produced its first television dramas decades ago. The nowdefunct N.Z.B.C. produced its first television drama in 1961. That is the difference between British television drama and television drama here,” said Mr Mcßae. In England he would go to

an experienced script editor who would get the right writer for the job at hand. The writer would be experienced, a professional, and used to the requirements of television — and deadlines. Then, when the drama went to proiuction “at no time would the complement of new or trainee personnel rise above I per cent.” “Here I go to a script editor who is still learning his craft,” Mr Mcßae said. “His acquaintance with New Zealand writers is sketchy. We choose a writer we hope will deliver the goods, but most do not write full-time.”